Polish Diaspora in Turkmenistan

A Colonial Narrative

Walenty Tyszkiewicz

A new wave of Polish deportations to Turkmenistan came in 1920 from partitioned Ukraine and partitioned
Belarus. After the Treaty of Riga in 1921, those Poles who found themselves on the Soviet side of Ukraine
and Belarus were deported by the order of Moscow authorities. This group constitutes one of the least
known waves of Moscow-engineered deportations and persecutions of "politically incorrect" nations.

The next wave came in 1935, when persecution of Poles in the Soviet Union intensified. And a real big
wave came after the Soviet Union occupied western Ukraine and western Belarus, as well as eastern Poland,
in 1939. During World War II, Turkmenistan became a way-station for the "Polish war children." These
were the children of families deported to Siberia after the Soviet attack on Poland on 17 September 1939.
Most of them were orphans by the time they arrived in Turkmenistan. Eventually, many of them were
shipped to North Africa, New Zealand, Republic of South Africa, Canada and Australia. Some of these
children of war eventually established contact with us: Mr. Tadeusz Dorostanski from Australia, Mr.
Franciszek Gercog from the United States, and Mr. Bronislaw Kowalewski from Bielsko-Biala in Poland.

On its way to Africa, Gen. Wladyslaw Anders' army passed through Turkmenistan, setting up
Polish military hospitals in Ashkhabad and Krasnovodsk. Gen. Anders' army consisted of Polish prisoners of
the Gulag whom Stalin allowed to enlist as volunteers in the Polish army fighting the Nazis. These new
soldiers were in terrible physical shape. In Ashkhabad, 59 of them died after a short stay in the hospital, in
Krasnovodsk, 81. We do not know where their graves are because the archives dealing with that period are
not available to us.

After 1945, Poles continued to come. These were the victims of arrests in Poland during the
Soviet-engineered wave of arrests of members of the Home Army and their families. It is estimated that in
1948, there were 25,000
Poles and persons of Polish background in Turkmenistan. The number has since decreased owing to high
mortality and assimilation into the Russian nationality.

After the October Revolution, the Soviets established in Ashkhabad a "Narkomat for Polish Affairs"
which established contacts with Polish authorities in Poland. Eventually, this Narkomat became a Polish
diplomatic outpost. This group succeeded in sending to Poland two trainloads of Poles who wanted to return
to Poland. This happened before 1925. After that date, the repatriations ceased. The Soviet authorities were
not interested in diminishing the number of Europeans in Ashkhabad, knowing full well that whatever their
background, they would soon be Russified and thus add numbers to the imperial nation. Indeed, it took
heroic efforts to maintain a Polish identity in conditions of Russian-speaking totalitarianism, especially that
many natives of the region were unable to make a distinction between the Russian-speaking oppressors and
other whites who happened to be co-victims.

In 1956, a repatriation commission was set up again, but its work was limited to the city of
Ashkhabad. Huge distances, a lack of transportation and of a free flow of information (one could be arrested
for passing on information that did not appear in official newspapers) prevented those Poles who lived in
other regions of Turkmenistan from knowing about that commission, let alone availing themselves of its
activities.